Tuesday, 16 December 2014

Kim Jong Il

The Guardian of Socialism

by Andy Brooks

COMRADE KIM Jong Il was born on
16thFebruary 1942 at a revolutionary base in the
thick forests of Mount Paekdu. His father was great leader Kim Il Sung who had
started the anti-Japanese guerrilla struggle from nothing in the 1920s and his
mother was the dedicated communist Kim Jong Suk, who fought side by side with
the partisans in the liberation struggle.

Kim
Jong Il’s early days were of hardship and struggle in the battle that ended in
victory in 1945 and the liberation of Pyongyang. Five years later the country
was plunged into new horrors when the US imperialists and their lackeys
attempted to crush the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and plunged the
peninsula into war.

Kim
Jong Il’s boyhood was spent in the thick of battle amid great national
convulsions and ordeals. Like millions of Koreans of his generation Kim Jong Il
dedicated his life to the Workers Party of Korea and the socialist system they
were determined to build to create a better life for the Korean people.

The
American imperialists and their lackeys were fought to a standstill and the
guns fell silent in 1953. Kim Jong Il went to university where he developed his
ideas in the political, economic and cultural fields. But like all Korean
students Kim Jong Il took his turn at manual labour with the people in the
fields and on the construction sites.

After
graduation in 1964 Kim Jong Il worked for the Workers Party of Korea particularly
in the field of literature and art. He saw that popular culture was a major key
in renovating the Party’s ideological work as a whole and he wrote many
articles on this theme.

Kim
Jong Il devoted much time to developing the reborn DPRK film industry, particularly
in the adaptions of classic plays written by his father during the
anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle such as The Sea of Blood and The
Fate of a Self-DefenceCorps Man.
Screen versions of these works won critical acclaim and not just in Asia. One
film produced under the guidance of Kim Jong Il was awarded the special prize
and medal at the 18thInternational Film
Festival in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, in 1972, and it enjoyed unprecedented
success in Japan.

Kim Jong Il gave on-the-spot creative guidance to DPRK filmmakers but he never took a direct credit
although he drew on his own experience when he wrote On the Art of the Cinema in 1973 and The Cinema and Directing in 1987.

Kim
Jong Il developed the Juché idea, applying it to all spheres of economic
construction and for the promotion of north-south dialogue for the independent
peaceful reunification of Korea. His modesty, faithful service, tireless work,
total loyalty to Kim Il Sung and the Korean revolution and undoubted ability
meant that when the Workers Party of Korea considered the question of the
succession – and this was decided long before Kim Il Sung’s death – Kim Jong Il
was the unchallenged candidate to be the successor to great leader Kim Il Sung.

Kim
Jong Il made powerful contributions to the development of the Juché idea
including Abuses of Socialism are
Intolerable and Socialism is
a Science, published in the early 1990s, when whole sections of the
international communist movement were wavering following the
counter-revolutions in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe.

The
Juché philosophy has rarely been properly understood in the western communist
movement, which only embraced the economic ideas of Marx and Engels and ignored
the philosophical content of their works. It is often simply described as
“self-reliance” but it is much more than that. Juché, Korean-style socialism,
takes its roots from Marx and Engels but stresses the importance of every
individual and it is centred on every individual worker, who can only be truly
free as part of the collective effort.

Juché
opposes flunkeyism and dogmatism – the slavish adoption of models from other
socialist systems and the sterile repetition of Marxist tenets. Socialism is a
science for the emancipation of working people that must be applied to the
concrete conditions of any particular country and it must be understood by the
broad mass of the people to successfully carry out a revolutionary programme.

It is
not an abstract or idealistic philosophy but an ideology that liberates the
individual and the class. Kim Il Sung always stressed the need for ideological
advance and material benefits for the masses – what he called the “twin
towers”. When one tower advanced the other must follow. In the 1980s the DPRK
made phenomenal economic advances that transformed the cities and countryside
of north Korea. In the 1990s the ideological tower was advanced following the
collapse of the Soviet Union.

Korean
communists always welcome discussion about Juché as long it comes from people
who have studied it in the first place rather than taking impressions from
second hand sources or from the enemies of socialism. Juché is the essence of
Kim Il Sung’s thinking – for independence for all countries, anti-imperialism,
south-south co-operation, peace and socialism – policies that the DPRK put in
to practice with its material support to the struggling people of Africa and
Asia over the decades.

Comrade
Kim Jong Il took to the helm of state as the Korean masses north, south and
overseas grieved at the passing of Kim Il Sung, the veteran leader who had
defeated Japanese and American imperialism and led the Workers’ Party of Korea
to victory after victory in the battle to build a modern socialist democracy in
north Korea.

In the
midst of sorrow the people were hit by wave after wave of natural disasters. Floods
and storms ravaged Democratic Korea while the American imperialists stepped up
their economic and diplomatic blockade against the DPRK to again try force the
Korean people to beg for terms on their knees. But Kim Jong Il made it clear
from the very beginning that they could “expect no change from me,” dashing
wild imperialist hopes that the Korean communist movement would waver in times
of loss and hardship.

The
Workers Party of Korea, with Kim Jong Il at the helm, mobilised the masses to
overcome the damage caused by the natural disasters that had swept their land.
The mass of the Korean people closed ranks behind the Workers Party of Korea
led by Kim Jong Il, to defy US imperialism, repair the damage to the economy,
smash the diplomatic blockade and develop the people’s armed forces that defend
the immense gains of the Korean revolution.

Democratic
Korea opened the door to talks with the south Korean regime and showed it
readiness to negotiate over its own nuclear research programme and only when
those talks failed, due entirely to the intransigence of US imperialism, the
DPRK amazed the world by testing its own nuclear device in October 2006. What
other country could have achieved so much in so short a time?

The
answer lies in the fighting spirit of the Workers Party of Korea and the Jucheé
philosophy, Korean-style socialism that applies the tenets of Marxism-Leninism
to the concrete conditions of the Korean people and the needs of the modern
world we live in.

Kim
Jong Il developed the Juché idea based on the revolutionary experience of the
Korean masses!

Kim
Jong Il led the economic recovery in the DPRK!

Kim
Jong Il led the drive for defence against the threats of US imperialism!

Kim
Jong Il rallied the Korean people throughout the Korean peninsula behind the
demand to end the occupation and partition of south Korea and for peaceful
re-unification based on a confederal “one country – two systems”!

Kim
Jong Il stood by the world communist movement and the national liberation
movements of the world in their struggle against imperialism!

Kim
Jong Il followed in the footsteps of Kim Il Sung and led the Workers Party of
Korea to greater victories in the 21stcentury!

Now progressives and communists are now holding events in
honour of Comrade Kim Jong Il, who died at his post on 17th December
2011. But Kim Jong Il lives on in the hearts of communists and everyone
struggling for a better tomorrow and Kim Jong Il will be found at all times
among the millions upon millions of Koreans advancing onwards full of
confidence under the leadership of the dear respected Kim Jong Un!